Republicans unveil government funding measure

ASSOCIATED PRESS

March 5, 2013 12:01 AM

The U.S. Capitol is seen at sunrise in Washington, Monday, March 4, 2013. Automatic spending cuts that took effect Friday are expected to touch a vast range of across-the-board government services. The Senate is in the foreground. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)AP

ASSOCIATED PRESS

March 5, 2013 12:01 AM

WASHINGTON -- Republicans controlling the House moved Monday to give the Pentagon more money for military readiness while easing the pain felt by such agencies as the FBI and the Border Patrol from the across-the-board spending cuts that are starting to take effect.

The measure would leave in place automatic cuts of 5 percent to domestic agencies and 7.8 percent to the Pentagon ordered by President Barack Obama Friday night after months of battling with Republicans over the budget. But the House Republicans' legislation would award the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments their detailed 2013 budgets while other agencies would be frozen at 2012 levels -- and then bear the across-the-board cuts.

The new GOP funding measure is set to advance through the House on Wednesday. It's aimed at preventing a government shutdown when a six-month spending bill passed last September runs out March 27.

The latest measure would provide an increase for military operations and maintenance efforts as well as veterans' health programs but would put most of the rest of the government on budget autopilot.

After accounting for the across-the-board cuts, domestic agencies would face reductions exceeding 5 percent when compared with 2012. But Republicans would carve out a host of exemptions, seeking to protect certain functions, including federal prisons and firefighting efforts in the West, and to provide new funding for embassy security and modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The FBI and the Border Patrol would be able to maintain current staffing levels and would not have to furlough employees.

The legislation would provide about $2 billion more than the current level to increase security at U.S. embassies and diplomatic missions worldwide. Last September, a terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. A project to repair the Capitol Dome in Washington could stay on track, and NASA would be protected from the harshest effects of the automatic cuts.

Obama presided Monday over the first meeting of his new Cabinet in a sobering climate of fiscal belt-tightening, urging humane management of spending cuts for communities and families that are "going to be hurting."

"We can manage through it," the president told reporters. Obama and members of his Cabinet had been warning for weeks that the cuts would be painful, but the fact is they will be slow to take effect, with the first furloughs of government workers not due until April.